Brian, is this RAID setup strictly for listening/storage or for archiving?
Both. I'll use HDD as my primary storage for listening
and as an archive. I'll continue to archive my masters to DVD. And, I'll continue to ensure I have off-site backup by distributing the recordings to the broader music-loving community.
yes, the parity drive does provide 'some' fault tolerance, but it is not nearly as easy to rebuild a failed array as it would be with RAID1 or RAID0+1
I would disagree. Most scenarios of failure are a single drive failure. In both schemas multiple drive failures result in complete data loss. Rebuilding from parity or rebuilding from a mirror is generally seamless and can happen while the system/RAID is active. They can also operate in a non-optimal(failed disk) state w/o a performance impact. The only advantage i can see is that in a pure RAID1 setup (not RAID 0+1) it is sometimes possible to break the mirror and mount a single drive in the case of a failed or corrupt RAID configuration.
I'm inclined to gree with you, Fozzy - my old IT background is slowly coming back to me, and you've mirrored my understanding. About the only reason I can think of for why I'd want to run RAID1 over RAID5 is your final comment: the ability to mount a standalone single drive in the event of drive failure or corruption.
I initially wanted to run RAID5 in part so I could increase storage capacity easily: just add a drive and - BANG - X GB more storage capacity. I could increase capacity in RAID1, but it wouldn't prove as simple. I'd have to either:
[1] create a second arrayThis would require another controller (or two more if I'm duplexing - don't think that's necessary, though) and 2 more drives as opposed to the ability to add single drives as necessary with RAID5
[2] increase array capacityThis would require a bit more hassle...
- add two larger drives to the array
- re-build the mirror to include the new, larger drives
- which, of course, won't utilize the full capacity of the new drives (yet)
- remove the old, smaller drives from the array
- increase the size of the mirror to utilize the full capacity of the new drives
Option [2] doesn't make such sense to me - unless for some reason I don't want or can't accommodate multiple RAID1 implementations - since I'd have the smaller drives leftover doing...nothing. Might as well go with [1] and build a whole new array and maintain the storage capacity from the original array + the new capacity from the new array.
Sounds a helluva lot easier to just chuck a new drive into a RAID5 array!